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He dumped the bag on the kitchen counter and unloaded the contents, obviously expecting her to toddle off to the bathroom without bothering him. Wrong. She wasn’t playing that game any more.
She hoisted the ready-to-bake Spider-Man cupcake mix he’d placed on the counter. ‘You’re not seriously planning to darken my mum’s kitchen with this crap, are you? If she finds out, she’ll have us both shot at dawn.’
His brow crinkled in a fetchingly puzzled frown. ‘I wasn’t planning to tell her.’
‘Do you have any idea how many E-numbers are in this stuff?’ She started reading from the ingredients panel. ‘And not just E-numbers. We also have edible gum, non-milk solids, artificial colouring …’ She tapped her fingernail on the box. ‘Oh, and, the pièce de résistance, guaranteed to give all ten-year-olds a sugar rush that will blow their heads off, fructose syrup and glucose emulsifiers. Yummy.’
He grabbed the box and placed it back on the counter. ‘Apologies to your mum, but this’l
l have to do.’ He lifted one of her mum’s stainless steel mixing bowls from the cabinet. ‘I need to get these done in an hour. I don’t have time for fancy.’
‘Why have you only got an hour?’ Was he deserting her again for the day? Because it was starting to give her a complex.
He tore off the box’s lid. ‘I’ve got somewhere I’ve got to be.’
Lizzie frowned. So far, so completely uncommunicative.
There were about a billion questions she wanted to ask him, but she recognised the stubborn expression on his face. Aldo had worn the exact same one when she’d quizzed him about the full pack of Jammie Dodgers that had been in the biscuit tin last week and had mysteriously vanished without trace a day later.
Boys, or men, with that expression on their face fessed up only if you got sneaky.
He ripped open the package holding the cupcake mix. But as he headed for the fridge to pull out some eggs, she picked the packet up and dumped it head first into the trash.
‘Hey, what the hell did you do that for?’ Well, at least she’d managed to bypass unfailingly polite.
‘I told you.’ She slapped her hands together, ignoring the horrified look. ‘We’re not going to Aldo’s bake sale with plastic cupcakes. That much is non-negotiable. This family has a baking reputation to protect.’
‘But I don’t have time to figure out an alternative.’ He trailed off, clearly speechless, the crinkle on his forehead becoming a furrow. ‘I didn’t want to buy ready-made cakes. And Aldo will flip if I show up with nothing at all.’
‘Not a problem. Bring the eggs over here and then get the self-rising flour, the caster sugar and the vanilla essence from the larder.’ She swung round the counter and pulled one of the wooden spoons out of the huge earthenware jug her mum kept by the eight-ring hob.
He hesitated, his frown dipping, in two minds about whether to obey her order.
‘Get a move on, Trey, we only have fifty minutes now.’
He cursed under his breath and stalked off to the larder. She took the moment alone to wash her hands and repair her ponytail. Catching her reflection in the window glass above the sink, she withheld a shudder.
She just hoped Trey appreciated his women au naturel, because she was sporting full no-make-up selfie chic. She fetched the butter, scooped half of the tub into the bowl and began softening it up with the spoon.
The items she’d requested were unceremoniously dumped at her elbow. ‘What are we making?’
‘Spider-Man cupcakes, of course.’ She sprinkled a generous amount of caster sugar onto the butter.
‘Oh, yeah, of course,’ he said, still pissed off. ‘Because that makes perfect sense now you’ve chucked the mixture into the bin.’
‘They probably have some themed casings in the box,’ she said, ignoring the sarcasm. ‘Arrange them on a baking tray, then turn the oven on to gas mark five.’
He huffed with indignation but followed her instructions. She took surreptitious glances at him as he fiddled with the casings, hurrying to arrange them in straight rows on the baking tray.
Wherever he was going, he did not want to be late.
The wooden spoon faltered. Did he have a girlfriend? A guy as fit as him with the work ethic of a Trojan would be a catch, no question, even if he couldn’t make cupcakes from scratch. And wore straight-leg jeans.
‘Ready,’ he said. ‘What next?’
She cracked two eggs into the bowl one-handed, comfortable with the familiar routine. ‘Grab the flour sieve.’ She battered the cake mixture into a smooth consistency while imagining it was his imaginary girlfriend’s head.
‘Where is it?’
